I’ve been learning the Universal Windows Platform for the past few weeks. This is all part of my new year’s resolution to learn new stuff.

So, how’s it going? I’m glad you asked!

Bookshelf

UWP Bookshelf

This is early days, but I have a bunch of stuff working. The app searches Google Books, and pulls images from Amazon if Google doesn’t have any images. I’m parsing JSON, making async HTTPclient calls, the back button is working, text can be expanded and collapsed, and the app is responsive.

I’ve learnt a lot and I’m happy with my progress so far. I have a list of features I want to add to this app, and then I intend to submit it to the Windows App Store. Think integration with GoodReads, saving books to your library, and so on.

UWP is a pleasure to use, and for hobbyists, easy to pick up. I’m not a software developer by trade, and I’m not planning (yet) to build very complex apps. I really like the fact that I can build this app, and it runs without any modification on my Raspberry Pi running Windows 10 IOT. It works on Windows Mobile too, but we all know how that’s turned out.

Microsoft is looking good to me. The promise of UWP, the moves they’re making with .Net Core, the Azure Strategy - this is all good news. Of course, maybe I don’t know anything and the Windows Desktop is dead and I’m learning a dying language and framework.. but I’ll take that chance.

My brain is happy cause I’m pushing it to learn new stuff. I’m building tangible apps that are actually useful (for me, but that counts).

The code for my Bookshelf App is rather raw, but once I polish it up a bit I’ll probably push it to Github. I keep my development repos on VisualStudio.com because I can have private repos and don’t need to worry about leaking credentials.

Keep on learning :)